A Hearty Harvest

As summer turns to fall, we have been collecting the last harvest of our garden. It has been a great summer with a cornucopia of vegetables at our disposal. I won't lie and tell you that the garden wasn't hard work. It takes weekly maintenance (at least). However, it is incredibly rewarding to eat the food you have grown. Here are some pictures of our harvests over the summer:

This was one of our first harvests in the summer. We had so many cucumbers from just one cucumber plant!

Definitely a common scene in our kitchen. We had trouble keeping up!

And who doesn't love watermelon?

Since our kitchen was overflowing with vegetables, we decided to find a way to save them for a "time of need" a.k.a. winter. So we stocked up on Ball jars and looked up several canning recipes. We ended up making homemade pasta sauce, tomato soup, salsa, pickles and pesto.

Here is the recipe we used for the pasta sauce. I followed this recipe for the pesto, but I added a step of toasting the pine nuts so they would release more flavor into the pesto. I love to use this recipe with our homemade pesto! It is so delish and easy. For the pickles, we just bought a bag of pickling spices and followed the directions on the bag.The trick to canning anything (including diced tomatoes which we also canned) is to throw them in a jar with some lemon juice. Then, put the lids on an place them in boiling water for about 15 minutes to seal the jars. Then voila, you have canned vegetables!

And finally, here are some pictures of what we canned! If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

I'm so excited we will be able to savor our garden through winter! Stay tuned for a booth update.